No More Red Right Return

I still have a few problems with the PC. I am contributing this to old age, not me , the computer. Red right return means going up river you keep the red nun buoys on your right. I am now heading back down river and I am down bound with the green cans on my right.

Well I made it up to end of the navigable water on the Little Tennessee River and what is referred to as Tellico Lake.

You can see the Great Smokey Mountain. The last ten miles of the navigable waters – beautiful.

Great Smokey mountains

Sight of the Cherokee town of Chota. Each stone represents a clan. The clans were Deer, Wild Potato, Wolf, Paint, Bird, Long Hair and Bird. This town had been in existence since the the late 1600 hundreds.

You can barely see the marker for  the town where the the town Tanasi was located as the capital until 1731. We all know what the President from Tennessee did to the Cherokee.  What sate and river get their name from this village? Duh…

This is Fort Loudoun. This fort was taken by the Cherokee when they turned on the British during the War of 1763. They did this after the British executed Cherokee civilians in the Carolinas. The United States tried to keep settlers from encroaching on Cherokee land toward the end of the 18th century by building another fort nearby but we know how that  worked out.

Tellico lake itself is clear and cold and the best water quality I have seen on my trip. The problem with The lake is it never had to be built. It serves no purpose for the TVA. The farmers who had to sell their land got next to nothing and the Congress of the United States passed a law exempting the lake construction from environmental regulations.

So what you end up with is mile after mile of million dollar homes stacked 20 feet apart for 20 miles. The TVA originally made the farmers sell all their land and have no water front property with the promise that the lake would remain natural and forested. All I’m going to say about this is some folks, maybe in government,  maybe not, made millions and millions of dollars off grandpa’s farm. All we need is a floating Starbucks next to the 6000 square foot boat house to complete the scene.

Not a big entry but next we’ll do the headwaters of the Tennessee.

Dr Brad standing by on 16

Wake boarders Suck

Another bad day with the useless lower than shit hammered paper thin wake boarders and their inbred cousin PWC animals.

But that is not what I’m here to say. it has taken me 30 minutes to get this far with this post. I don’t know if it is malware, software or hardware. my entire computer is slowly starting to crap out. I can’t get on Skype, my email is crapping out ,so on and so forth. I won’t be up for a while and if I can get this through I’ll get back when I can.

The Great Smokey mountains. I made it.

More on that later

Dr Brad standing by on 16 or until I get this computer running okay.

Gorge, Fault, Escarpment

I have been out four days from Goose Pond Marina. Started off stopping at Jones Creek on Saturday. Beautiful anchorage surrounded by large hills.

That’s an eagle at Jones Creek

Jones Creek like a whole other lake.

Then it was on thru Nicklejack. The day was kinda long but I locked thru Sunday afternoon.

Floating island made up of malfoil and anything that will grow on top.

Started to dock a Shellmound Park at the free docks but the wind was up and I was tired so I hit a small embayment and went over to the free docks the next day. Stayed there Monday night and left for Williams this morning

That is all prelude to now.

I went through the Tennessee Gorge and it was the best river scenery I have see on this trip. The title of the post refers to the three major geological features of this section of the river.

The first attraction of note is the old Hales Bar powerhouse. Built in 1904 it was the biggest deal of the new century in Tennessee. The hydro electric plant was completed in 1913. This plant was the largest in the country next to The one at Niagara.  The problem was it leaked. It isn’t there anymore

Just a vacant building

Then I got into the gorge and real mountains for the next 25 miles.

Below is the Racoon Mountain Power Station outlet. Eleven hundred feet up is a 520 acre lake that is filled in slack use times and used as hydro power in peak times. Pretty cool huh!

About here at the power station the fault is evident when the depth of the water can go from 30 feet to 130 feet. This is from and old earthquake fault and continues for the next  few miles.

The river narrows at times to 600 to 700 feet. there are places along the river with turbulent water with names like The Pot, The Skillet, The Suck and my favorite Mongo Chute.

When I left today I thought the current would be down. I was surprised to find as I headed up the river the current increased and my speed was dropping at a constant 2000 rpms from 6.3 mph to below 5. I had checked the outflow at Chickamauga Lock and it was around 7000 cubic feet a second this morning. Little did I know they had raised that to 47,000 cubic feet per second by 11:00 am. I was down to 4.4 mph off and on still running 2000 rpms. Thank my ancestors that the current dropped off near the island and I am anchored securely for the night.

I am in sight of Signal Mountain which is part of the Cumberland Escarpment a big table plateau that extends north and east.

Tomorrow Chattanooga.

While I was writing this deal the big cat boat from the Tennessee Aquarium blew by and waked me. I called on 16 and chewed him out. I will report him. He can apologize all he wants this is a 200 foot channel off the main channel. He should not even be back here on that boat . Well that’s my only bitch for the day.

I just heard thunder. Good night for Honda generator AC cool.

Dr Brad standing by on 16.